Post by stolenhart on Feb 6, 2010 12:22:39 GMT -6
A Leader's Doubts
What am I gonna do?
Those words chase themselves over and over in my mind, running into one long sentence. Not even listening to a Harper’s music will clear them. Headache after headache and my riders wonder why I disappear so often. I have to lose myself in the oblivion that is a woman or a cup of ale. It makes the words stop for so brief a time. Everyone thinks I have the right answers, I don’t, I just have answers. That scares me, what if I tell them something wrong?
I suppose every leader must think that, must not trust their own thoughts and opinions at some point in their life. Maybe that is why my father and Hallek are not good leaders, they do not doubt their actions. Always believing they are right in what they do. Maybe they are, maybe they are good leaders and I am the bad one.
If one of the hatchlings Impresses a female, will I have the strength, the courage of my convictions to keep it here? To fight the battles in their behalf that will need to be fought? Or will I bow to Weyr dictates and ship them off to their deaths? Rumors abound that our dragons become part of Northern Weyr, but I doubt that. I’ve never seen a female rider in my patrols, never captured one in my raids. I believe they die, starving to death on some unnamed island beneath a burning sun. Am I good leader for following Weyr traditions or a bad one for believing against them? Or is it twisted around and I have it right? And what will my brother say?
I glance at Gimna breathing, so shallow, her skin is as pale as fresh ice, the blue veins so visible under her fair skin and my heart falls into my feet. I don’t love her, never did, but she is a friend. She knows my past and doesn’t resent me for it, she has always believed in me. Would she be mad? Angry? Accepting? Resigned if I sent a female Impressed Hatchling away? Would it kill her if I told her the news? She’s so weak, sleeping all day, barely eating, barely talking, I wish there was a way I could make her stronger, then she could take these words from my head.
What am I gonna do?
